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Comment by andrewparker | Hacker News Reader

For those interesting in peeling back another layer of the onion on the odd world of the MPAA, definitely watch This Film Is Not Yet Rated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Film_Is_Not_Yet_Rated

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That documentary showed pretty well that the MPAA is harsher on films with gay themes, but it wasn't convincing in other areas. There's a good reason that sexual content is more likely to lead to a stricter rating than violent content: parents believe their kids are more likely to emulate the sexual content. When I was a teenager, I, for one, copied a lot more sex moves from films I'd seen than I did karate moves.

I think that premise is flawed in today's environment. It assumes that minors get a lot of their information about sex from MPAA rated movies. That might have been true in the 1990's, but ever since file sharing and the web took off, porn has been ubiquitous. Not to mention the last few years with all the porn-centric youtube clones.

Except the movie is about the line between an R and an NC-17 rating. Kids under 17 are not supposed to be allowed into an R rated movie without an adult. On the other hand, NC-17 rated movies are not shown in most movie theaters. So by giving a movie an NC-17 for, for instance, depicting a woman receiving oral sex (like Blue Valentine), the MPAA is effectively limiting what movies adults can see, rather than protecting children.

> I, for one, copied a lot more sex moves from films I'd seen than I did karate moves.

That is probably because you are biologically inclined to do so (and the "moves" are just how you do it, not when or why)

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